- This event has passed.
Immanuel Wilkins Quartet
June 5, 2021 @ 8:00 pm
The Vermont Jazz Center is pleased to complete its 2020-21 livestream season with a concert by the highly acclaimed Immanuel Wilkins Quartet on June 5th, 2021. This young group, each of whom is in their early to mid-twenties, has been touring, recording and creating together since their teens and has been a solid, performing ensemble for four years. The musicians are Immanuel Wilkins (compositions and alto saxophone), Micah Thomas (piano), Daryl Johns (bass) and Kweku Sumbry (drums).
The Immanuel Wilkins Quartet’s debut record, Omega, released on Blue Note and produced by Jason Moran, has received numerous “best of” awards including NPR’s Best Debut Jazz Album of 2020 and it also topped the New York Times’ Best Jazz Albums of 2020. Other accolades showered upon Wilkins include Best New Talent of 2020 by Musica Jazz. And a LetterOne Rising Stars Jazz Award.
In a recent Zoom interview with jazz blogger Marty Duda, Wilkins discussed the premise of his new recording, Omega. He said that he was trying to come up with an audible representation of what Black identity sounds like to him. He said that as a Black man he experiences two tiers of existence simultaneously, one that is made up of “super-horrific material, that is terribly graphic and explicit,” and another Black experience that is “super-hilarious, sublime and beautiful.” He explained, “our everyday lives deal with both tiers in conjunction with each other. So I’m trying to create music that audibly sounds like that. It’s audibly grotesque but also really beautiful, sublime and heavenly.” The name of the album and the names of all the compositions reflect this theme. For example, the album’s title, Omega, literally means “the end.” Wilkins says he is using the word Omega as a metaphor to represent “the end of an era.” He asks “what does the end of police brutality look like, the end of prejudice, the end of racial oppression? What does true liberation look like?” This dichotomy of experiences is explored in Wilkins’ work which revolves upon the contrasts of beauty and pain, love and injustice that he experiences as a Black man.
In past years, our concerts happen “live” and in person and are valued at $40 per ticket. This year, with live streaming, we are relying on donations to offset costs. Please give generously and support live music.
—Jazz Times
